


getting up soon enough

by cherrygarden



Category: WAYV
Genre: Altered Mental States, Alternate Reality, Canon With Magical Elements, Demonic Possession, Fanservice, Getting Together, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Real Feelings, Sex Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:22:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22150105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrygarden/pseuds/cherrygarden
Summary: Yangyang thought Kun had gotten better, but it turns out Kun is really good at pretending.
Relationships: Liu Yang Yang/Qian Kun
Comments: 2
Kudos: 72
Collections: BBBFest Debut Round: The Bittersweet Option, Haggly Holidays!





	getting up soon enough

**Author's Note:**

  * For [violetcity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetcity/gifts).



> \- hi violetcity, i hope you're having a good new year and i hope you enjoy this!  
> \- thanks to 篴 for a truly ridiculous amount of handholding  
> \- if you need a soundtrack, i listened to james blake's assume form album almost the entire time while writing this

“Hey, are you good?”

Kun comes out of the bathroom looking pale— not even, more like grayed out, like Yangyang is looking at him through a fogged up window— and his eyes are scrunched shut. “Fine,” he grits out, even though he’s clearly not and Yangyang reaches out with a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

Kun keeps his gaze down when he opens his eyes, and the red glow coming from them makes him look like he’s blushing. Yangyang’s heart maybe skips a beat. It’s not the first time he’s seen it, but it always feels weird to notice things like that: Kun’s eyes glowing red, or seeing him float a foot off his bed in the middle of the night. All Yangyang knows is he’d gotten sick way before they’d ever met; Kun doesn’t talk about it, so Yangyang doesn’t press him on it, just notices all the residual symptoms. Before, when Yangyang only heard about Kun’s debut getting delayed in passing, he thought Kun had recovered, but Kun was just good at pretending.

Yangyang tries to shuffle Kun back into their shared room, but Kun just shrugs him off, scrunches his eyes shut again so Yangyang won’t see them glow and feels his way blindly back to his bed. Kun nearly trips over two pairs of Yangyang’s shoes, and Yangyang grimaces. “Ge, do you need anything? Like, medicine, or I can get you some water, or...”

“Don’t worry about it, Yang.” 

Yangyang kicks his shoes over to the side of the room and crouches by Kun’s bed, where Kun’s taking deep, even breaths. It almost looks like he’s gone to sleep. Yangyang’s at a loss. What are you supposed to do when someone’s sick? He puts his palm on Kun’s forehead. Temperature’s fine; Kun’s no hotter than normal. 

Kun opens his eyes, all normal and brown now. He sits back up and pinches Yangyang in the side. “Come on, stop that. And get in the shower already before you make us late.”

Yangyang knows he’s being brushed off but preens under Kun’s attention anyway. He’d take anything he could get from Kun anyway, so most of the time that’s being babied. He figures Kun must like it, too, even if he acts like Yangyang’s a pain in the ass because the only alternative is Kun’s polite, professional distance. If Kun wants to coddle him, he might as well make the most of it. Yangyang smiles big at him, fluttering his eyelashes. “You’ll buy me dinner today, right?”

That gets a small smile out of Kun. He throws his hands up in an act of exaggerated exasperation. “I’ll think about it if you stop stinking up the place, oh my God.”

Yangyang spends every second he doesn’t need to be in his seat bothering Kun. He’s not really worried; Kun hasn’t had any other symptoms since this morning, and Kun’s never had an incident in front of an audience. They’re all wearing their charms and amulets anyway— for energy, coordination, minor things to protect against curses, just in case, because anti-fans can be vicious sometimes— and Yangyang’s pretty sure Kun gets some extra stuff from the managers to keep his condition manageable.

Kun rolls his eyes in an over-the-top full-body movement when Yangyang pulls the fake fan routine and holds his hand across the table, saying in half jumbled Korean, “Kun oppa, do you remember me? I’m your biggest fan!” He’s got his mic in the other hand, so everyone in the room can hear him, and it gets a big squeal out of the audience. Kun makes a big fuss out of rushing around the table to get Yangyang back in his seat, and that keeps the reaction going. 

By the time they finish up the fansign, Kun seems to be in high spirits. Yangyang can barely remember the way he looked wrung out this morning. 

Kun had already packed that morning. He leans against the doorframe, scrolling through something on his phone.

He’s been soaking up Kun’s attention all day, but Yangyang thinks he could probably keep milking this bit for everything it’s worth. He throws some clothes into his suitcase then turns to look up at Kun expectantly. “I’m not packing your bag for you,” Kun says, without taking his eyes off his phone. “And you’d better do it quickly; I promised you dinner.”

Yangyang gets caught between an indignant huff and a swell of affection, staring at his haphazardly half-packed bag. Well, fuck it, he can’t even bring himself to be a brat about it and they’re only gone for two days, so he rolls up a couple of tracksuits and pairs of underwear, calls it done in record time.

“What’s up with the two of you today?” Guanheng asks them on their way out. “Sneaking out?”

“Baby needs to eat,” Kun says, jostling Yangyang against his side and pointedly not inviting Guanheng along. 

Guanheng points and shrieks, “That’s favoritism!”

Yangyang lets a smug peal of laughter bubble up and sticks his tongue out at Guanheng. He tries to rush Kun out the door fast enough that his flush won’t be obvious and they won’t have to talk about how the idea of being Kun’s favorite makes him feel. Yangyang wants Kun to like him as much as he does, but when it plays out in his mind, he doesn’t embarrass himself by talking about it.

They end up walking to a Vietnamese place near the dorms, and Yangyang can play his blush off as a reaction to the cold. 

Kun might be worried that Yangyang’s going to broach the demon issue, but Yangyang’s not going to ruin a perfectly nice night like that. Besides, he can just ask Ten about it later. Eventually, Kun gets a couple drinks in him and the tension in his shoulders drips away. He looks a little red again, but it’s not because of his glowing eyes this time.

On the walk back to the dorms, Yangyang hooks an arm into Kun’s. 

“I can’t believe you didn’t even bring us takeout,” Guanheng says, dropping into the seat next to him on the plane. “How the hell does Kun put up with you, brat?”

“Shut up,” Yangyang whines. He’s only making things worse, but there’s no easy way out here. 

“You made us eat airport food!” Guanheng says, which is his version of not pressing the topic. 

At the Beijing fansign, Yangyang sits in Kun’s lap. Cue the screams. Kun doesn’t push him off, probably wouldn’t have even if Yangyang had done this at the dorms, but there’s something about the eyes on them, the safety of play-acting on stage, like none of it really that serious. It’s getting to be that serious for Yangyang; he wants to be around Kun all the time now, wants to touch him and realizes he _can_. Like this, so he doesn’t have to say it. Leaning into the press of Kun’s hand at the small of his back.

Ten is in the middle of an Instagram live when Yangyang comes to his room. He ribs Ten a little bit about wanting attention too much and sticks around to talk about nothing of importance, killing time until Ten ends the live. When it’s over, Yangyang lays back on Ten’s hotel bed. “What’s wrong with Kun-ge?”

Ten laughs. “What isn’t wrong with him?”

“Seriously,” Yangyang says, and Ten gives him a look like, _When have you ever been serious?_ “Is he cursed or what? You knew him when he got sick before, and now I think he doesn’t talk about it. Like, I don’t know how to talk to him about it.”

“He has a demon that uses his body like a puppet when it gets bored, of course he doesn’t wanna talk about it.”

Yangyang probably wouldn’t want to talk about it either. It’s been two years, though. Maybe a little more. Is Kun just used to it now? Is that the kind of thing someone can get used to? Yangyang has never been cursed, never even broken a bone or gotten sicker with anything stronger than the flu. He has nothing to compare it to. “Does it hurt?”

Ten frowns like he does when he doesn’t want to admit he doesn’t know something. Maybe he’s never asked, maybe Kun wouldn’t have told him anyway. Yangyang groans and rubs the heels of his palms into his eyes.

“Why are you asking about this now?” Ten says. “Did something happen?”

“No. I just, like, want to know. You know?”

Ten moves suddenly and hovers over Yangyang like a cat. Shit. He does know. “You wanna be Kun-ge’s nurse? I’ll get you a cute outfit for that, too.”

Yangyang flushes, feeling like he’s being caught between a rock and a hard place, emotionally speaking. “It’s not like that. I mean, not _just_ like that.”

Ten laughs and rolls off him.

“It’s like,” Yangyang continues, “if you were possessed by a demon, wouldn’t you want to fix it?”

“Yeah, but it’s not really like a curse or something. Maybe it’s not so easy to fix, you know? Kun knows a lot more about magic... All this demon stuff...” Ten pauses, chews on his lip a little. “He won’t talk about it, he won’t let anybody ask. What am I supposed to do about it?”

 _Fucking something_ , Yangyang thinks, not so much frustrated with Ten as he is with himself. 

There’s a loud cracking sound in the dressing room, Kun yells, and then there’s Kun convulsing in his seat. It freaks his makeup artist the fuck out, and she gets ushered out of the room along with everyone else while Mr. Lin and Jiang rush to deal with Kun.

“Let me,” Yangyang says to Zhang Guoguang, who’s trying to get everyone to wait in the hallway, “I want to help.”

He doesn’t really know what he’d do to help, and by the time he gets to Kun’s side, Mr. Lin is gathering the shattered remains of Kun’s amulet off his lap. Jiang has Kun’s shirt up, drawing runes across his chest. Kun’s glowing, red eyes are fixed dazedly into middle distance, staring at nothing, and he’s gray and pale the way he had looked coming out of the bathroom the other day at the dorms.

By the time Yangyang realizes what’s happening, it’s all pretty much over. Mr. Lin has a backup amulet ready for Kun and Jiang lets everyone back into the room, explaining that Kun isn’t cursed and there’s nothing to worry about. The glow in Kun’s eyes is fading but he’s looking at Yangyang like it hurts him. Great job he did helping.

Everyone’s tired and drained and nervous during the next hectic few days, between the constant flights and rushing to fit in practices before they head off to Nagoya. It’s kind of a big deal for all of them, the awards show; too big a deal to even talk about it. The whole group is an overworked hivemind of anxious buzzing, picking up the pieces for each other where they can.

Kun runs through the new choreography with them twice before he disappears. Yangyang tries not to eavesdrop on him talking to the managers later, but he does catch some of it: Kun’s symptoms are acting up again. Yangyang wonders if it’s the stress that’s doing it, but that’s too frustrating to consider because they’re all stressed, and they’re always going to be stressed at some point or another. There’s no way to fix that, and Kun won’t quit.

Kun’s bed isn’t slept in later, even when Yangyang only gets a couple hours of sleep before they’re back at the airport. When they get another last minute practice on stage, Yangyang knows Kun’s made up the hours practicing alone.

Yangyang swings by Kun’s studio, not meaning to stick around, just to see if he can wheedle Kun into cooking or taking him out to eat. For all the time they spent in each other’s proximity, the week had been tough and strained and they’d all practically sleepwalked their way through it. He’s picking up his and Kun’s routine where they left off.

Kun doesn’t even notice him coming in, too focused on playing fast and cacophonous chords on his keyboard. It’s not the kind of track Kun usually goes for, but there’s something hypnotic about it, and he’s singing under his breath in words Yangyang can barely make out— definitely not one of the five languages Yangyang can speak, maybe Latin.

Kun doesn’t turn to look at Yangyang, and that’s fine, Yangyang can sit and watch quietly. There’s an armchair by the door that Ten had dragged in a week after Kun set up his new studio, just because Ten wanted to make it more convenient to be a nuisance. Yangyang slumps into the chair.

When Kun stops playing abruptly, he’s breathing heavy. He swivels his chair around and looks surprised to see Yangyang. “Fuck, when did you get in here?”

“Few minutes ago,” Yangyang says, watching Kun go from surprised to confused. “You were playing— was that— were you—” He cuts himself off with a groan; Yangyang is so in over his head, he doesn’t even know where to start talking about this. “Ge, are you getting worse? Your symptoms?”

Kun grimaces. “It’s fine, I can deal with it.”

Yangyang isn’t trying to start a fight, but he’s getting tired of not knowing what to do, tired of having to see Kun like this. “It’s not fine! It’s obviously not fine. You weren’t like this before. It wasn’t happening every day.”

“What do you want me to say?” Kun snaps. “Okay, I’m having a flare up, whatever. I know what I’m doing, I can handle it. I’ve been handling it.” He stops then, sighs, and adds, softer but still strained, “Yangyang, I don’t want to hurt you.”

Yangyang can feel himself pouting; he feels like a kid, like Kun has just been putting up with him like an annoying little brother this whole time. “Then why are you shutting me out?”

“I’m not. I don’t want to shut you out. But if I get too close— I don’t know what I’ll turn into. Whatever’s happening to me— I can’t let that happen.”

“Let me fix it. I’m not scared.”

“Please don’t make this harder than it already is. It’s my job to be the responsible one. I don’t need your help.”

Yangyang ends up feeling scolded, but this isn’t the kind of thing he can practice at like dancing or singing, with a finish line in full view. This is the kind of thing where the only way to make it better is to quit, and Yangyang has gotten too good at not quitting by now.

It’s not very mature of him to sulk, but that’s what Yangyang spends most of his week off doing. Between the odd practice session and sitting around trading off quick plays of Overwatch with Guanheng and Xiaojun, Yangyang tries not to spend as much time in his and Kun’s shared room anymore, constantly resisting the urge to go bother him about nothing in particular. By the end of the week, they’ve spoken maybe fifty words to each other in total.

Getting on the plane to Bangkok is a relief, even though Yangyang hates flying. It doesn’t help that Kun normally loves flying, but he hasn’t looked any happier since getting Yangyang off his back. He looks a little stressed still, and Yangyang just sits in his seat and stays quiet about it.

“Whatever’s going on between you and Kun,” Sicheng says to him, once they get back to the hotel from the fanmeet, “better stop going on.”

Yangyang hadn’t thought anything of Sicheng claiming him as a roommate because Sicheng is a good travel roommate who minds his business, usually, and Yangyang was glad to get away from the palpable tension of rooming with Kun anyway. He should have expected it would turn out to be an ambush because nothing is ever easy. “There’s nothing going on between me and Kun.”

“Clearly.” Sicheng’s voice drips with sarcasm, but it’s true; there’s nothing going on between Yangyang and Kun. A whole lot of nothing. They’ve even quit their fanservice bit because Yangyang doesn’t know if that’s allowed anymore. It wasn’t supposed to have anything to do with… whatever was actually going on between them before, but that’s just because Yangyang wouldn’t admit he’d wanted it to.

“Okay,” Yangyang tries. “What do _you_ think is going on?”

Sicheng shrugs. “You were all over each other last week and now you’re not. Kun’s pretty upset about it, I guess.”

“Kun’s upset? He basically told me to fuck off, so I don’t know what he wants from me anymore.”

Sicheng heads off into the bathroom and calls out, “At least stop being weird, it’s stressing us all out.”

Yangyang huffs into his pillow. It’s embarrassing that basically everyone seems to know about his stupid crush on Kun except for Kun. Maybe he should just tell Kun. Would that make things better or worse? Yangyang rolls onto his side and Baidu searches ‘demonic possession’ on his phone until he falls asleep.

He dreams of Kun that night. In the dream, Kun has long hair, blue skin, and fangs splitting open his lips. His eyes are glowing red and his mouth is dripping bloody drool. Yangyang distantly feels like he should be afraid, but he’s not— he reaches out. Yangyang presses two fingers towards Kun’s mouth, sliding over his sharp teeth and landing on his tongue. Kun digs his claws into Yangyang’s back; it should hurt, but it doesn’t. 

Yangyang tries to keep Kun off his mind until they get back to Seoul. It works, for the most part. He still dreams of Kun more often than not— nothing substantial, all variations on the first one— but at least he can keep his waking mind distracted with the minutiae of performing. 

He turns it over in his mind on the flight back. Sicheng had given him a loaded, meaningful look at the airport before going off with Lucas and Guanheng to their extra schedule. Yangyang still isn’t sure what it was supposed to mean, though.

When they get back to the dorms, Kun flops backwards onto his bed. Yangyang follows him, sitting up with his legs crossed, startling Kun’s eyes open when he puts a tentative hand on his thigh. “Ge, I know you want me to stay out of it, but I can’t do that.”

Kun sits up. “Yang…”

“No, wait.” Yangyang moves his hand from Kun’s leg to his chest. “I know you’re, like, trying to be responsible and in charge of everything, but you don’t have to do that. I can be responsible, too. And I don’t want you to do it alone.”

Kun doesn’t say anything, but he looks like he might start crying, and Yangyang can’t take it, so he leans forward and presses his lips to Kun’s. It’s dry, and it barely lasts two seconds. Kun’s face starts to get pinched, like he’s going to have one of his symptoms. “Tell me how to help you. What do I have to do, suck the demon out of you?” Yangyang says.

Kun grimaces.

Yangyang feels his face make surprised moves. Sex magic was one of the things he’d read about, but, well, he was aiming for a joke. Not that he doesn’t want to have sex with Kun, but he’s a little lacking in experience when it comes to magic. “What, seriously?” he splutters.

“Stop,” Kun says, sighing heavy and long-suffering. “You don’t have to.”

“ _Gege_ ,” Yangyang says, lowly, looking up at Kun and flinging his arms around Kun’s neck. He’s hoping it’ll make Kun laugh or squirm or do anything but sit there looking closed off and uncomfortable. It doesn’t really. Yangyang rolls his eyes. “Can you just— I’m not doing this out of, like, some sense or moral obligation. I mean, yes, I do want to help you but I also… want… you…”

It’s kind of awkward for both of them. Neither of them had ever been that earnest without the safe emotional buffer of a camera or an audience present. They’ve already made it this far, though, so Yangyang presses on, “It’s like— we were just pretending, right? Except I wasn’t really pretending. And everyone could tell except for us.”

“Yang…” Kun says again. This time he cups Yangyang’s face in his hands. “You were always an indulgence I couldn’t afford. I thought I could get away with pretending, but I wasn’t getting away with it because it was real. It was always real to me, and that’s terrifying.”

“It’s not. Not to me.” Yangyang leans in again to kiss Kun, pressing more insistently this time. He licks at the seam of Kun’s mouth until Kun opens up for him.

Kun pulls back, but only barely, so the tips of their noses are still touching. “You really want to do this?”

“Yeah, I really want to, gege,” Yangyang says, putting a little extra whine in his voice.

This time Kun does blush. “You’re gonna kill me,” he mutters.

“Yeah,” Yangyang says, laughing. “Just a little bit.”

He rucks Kun’s shirt up until Kun gets the hint, and then he takes over getting both their pants out of the way. Yangyang only stays patient enough to get to the point of skin-to-skin contact and just leaves both their pants tangled up around their knees. He rubs against Kun like that for a while, leaning into kiss him more and panting in between, “Come on. Tell me what to do.”

Kun sighs and digs his fingers into the meat of Yangyang’s shoulder. “This is good. Just keep doing this.”

Everything starts to fade away like a dream, and it hits Yangyang like a high that comes on too fast. He tries to focus on keeping his movements steady, but he’s fighting against a raging high tide to keep his grasp on consciousness. He feels like he’s up in the stratosphere and at the bottom of the ocean all at once, fissioning under all the pressure.

He feels his atoms scattering infinitely, and for a moment he starts to think he might never come back from this. It’s equal parts terrifying and soothing to consider the insignificance of Liu Yangyang’s life. Sure, he’s made a lot of people pretty happy. That’s probably enough.

The pieces start to snap back into place. His vision starts to clear, and he sees Kun, long-haired, blue-skinned.

“It’s you,” Yangyang says to Kun. 

“Who?” Not to Kun. To the demon. But that’s not who Kun is to him. 

Yangyang presses two fingers past the demon’s teeth, down onto its tongue. Then he pulls his fingers back, wet with spit-diluted blood, and puts them into his own mouth. He sucks around the taste of iron until it’s gone.

Yangyang’s vision goes hazy. When he blinks, he’s back in reality, back in his body, looking at Kun— the real Kun. He looks sated and relaxed for the first time. He’s also kind of covered in come. Yangyang looks down to see they both are. He laughs and leans down to lick off a splatter that’s reached Kun’s chin.

“So, you see why I haven’t wanted to do that for the past two years?” Kun says, voice full of mirth because he can’t stop smiling.

Before this, Yangyang might have blushed, but the magic changed him, changed both of them. “Actually, it was kinda hot.” 

“You’re a menace, kid.”

“I’m not a kid. You’d let a kid do all that to you? Huh? Old man.”


End file.
